Chapter 27 in Serbia: Still under Construction, One Year Later

Chapter 27 in Serbia: Still under Construction, One Year Later

Analysis of environmental and climate change policy in the Republic of Serbia highlights a wide range of serious challenges in all areas - horizontal legislation, air quality, water quality, nature protection, industrial pollution, chemicals management, climate change and financing of environmental protection. The most prominent challenges in the environmental and climate sector are:•Regulations are not being adopted on scheduled.•Too often regulations are adopted with limited public consultation and a failure to involve all stakeholders.•Implementation of adopted regulations is often inadequate.•Regulatory, inspection and enforcement capacity is weak.•Financing of environment and climate change policy is inadequate.•Funds allocated for environment and climate change policy are often not fully used or are used other purposes.

Unfortunately, there remains a lack of awareness in Serbia about the cause-and-effect relationship between harmful habits and their growing negative consequences for the environment and climate, as well as of the cost of rehabilitating and revitalizing the environment once the damage has been done. As a result, harmful practices continue, such as subsidizing the use of fossil fuels rather than utilizing the limited funds available for important priorities such as investment in renewable energy.

Slow progress in the environmental sector testifies to the deep-rooted and misguided assumption that as a society we cannot afford the perceived high costs of investing in environmental protection, renewable energy and a sustainable future. This is surprising, given the rising agricultural losses due to drought, negative impact on public health, and the human and material losses that we have suffered from natural disasters, to name only three factors that demonstrate the importance of strong commitment to environmental protection and climate change action.

In a word, environment and climate change are (still) not the priority of the Republic of Serbia.